1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine translation apparatus, and more particularly to a machine translation apparatus suitable for processing compound-word proper nouns with acronyms.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a conventional machine translation apparatus, when a word in a sentence entered into the apparatus is used as a proper noun, and if the word is registered as a proper noun in a conversation dictionary which is consulted, a corresponding translated word is generated according to information obtained by consulting the dictionary. On the contrary, if the word is not registered as a proper noun in the dictionary, a translated word is generated based upon information, other than that for proper nouns, obtained from consulting the dictionary.
As mentioned above, despite the fact that a word in a sentence entered into the apparatus is used as a proper noun, if the word is not registered as a proper noun in a conversation dictionary, a translated word is generated based upon other information obtained by consulting the dictionary, thus resulting in incorrect translation.
The above incorrect translation often occurs, particularly in the case in which a plurality of words make up compound-word proper nouns. FIG. 16 illustrates an example of an input sentence and the corresponding output sentence which is incorrectly translated by the conventional machine translation apparatus.
When there is a proper noun, such as "Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)" in an entered sentence, and if a group of these words is not registered as a compound-word proper noun in the dictionary, a group of these translated words is generated based upon other information obtained from consulting the dictionary. As a result, the proper noun is incorrectly translated as "Organization of Petroleum which Exports Countries," giving an incorrect meaning to the translated text.
Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 63-182775 discloses "a machine translation apparatus" which is constructed such that when a source sentence or a source text including proper nouns is machine-translated, information regarding proper nouns which relate to a preliminary knowledge of the source sentence or the source text, and yet which do not appear in the source sentence or the source text, is generated as part of a translated sentence or a translated text.